The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale

by Martinez, Brian

“You wake in the Day?”

  “Of course. Don't you?”

  “But we're...”

  “Munies don't own the monopoly on the daytime. Mankind's been walking around in the sun for a very long time, and I plan to follow that tradition for a while longer. Besides, we're relatively safe here. We don't let what's happening on land sway us from how we live our lives.”

  “But tomorrow. The Sun.”

  “Tell you what- I'll make sure the meeting room is good and dark before you set foot in it. In the meantime, I'll see if I can get you some new clothes. It looks like you could use a replacement for those rags you have on.”

  Child steps in front of me, her face squinted. “Mother beautiful.”

  I tell her not to call me that. I'm still not her mother and it's still not my name, but I feel warm the way she talks about me.

  **

  A big house sits at the top of a hill in the middle of the island. It looks the way it did in the pictures in my head, except that all the windows near the ground are covered with sheets of wood to stop Munies from entering. Terence says it was something called a hotel. The word is familiar, a place for families.

  The door is blocked by two Real People with guns held up. Before we get close I can smell that it's one male and one female, both young.

  “Hey, Terence. Who's this,” the girl asks.

  “New friends,” Terence says. As they lower their guns I notice something about them.

  “Family.” I aim the light at both of them. “You share blood.”

  The boy says, “Unfortunately.”

  The girl says, “How the hell did you know that?”

  “Your scents are made up of the same things.”

  Their faces are serious, both looking at Terence at the same time. “Is she a-”

  “You have my word they won't hurt anyone.”

  They argue with him for some time about this. Then the girl says, “She talks pretty good for one of them.”

  “She talks well,” Terence says.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. There's something different about her.”

  They calm. The girl says to me, “So hold on a second- you're telling me I smell like this idiot even though he showers like once a year?”

  “It's not you,” I tell her, “it's your blood.”

  They're both quiet. Then the boy says, “That's so fucking cool.”

  She hits him in the arm. “Are you kidding me? That's not cool, it's terrible.”

  “Like you know the difference.”

  Terence says, “How did you two end up on watch together?”

  “Because my life's a joke, that's how.”

  The boy says, “You know how when you step in dog shit it gets caked up in your shoe, and no matter how much you rub it in the grass or hit it with the hose you can't shake it off? That's what she's like.”

  They argue more. Terence doesn't bother trying to stop them, instead he points for us to walk on. As we turn the corner they're still fighting, with loud voices and strange words.

  The house is all dark wood, kept clean by Real People hands. It's been years since I've seen a place like this, kept together in one piece and empty of dust and bones.

  Terence says, “That was Tommy and Vanessa, the twins. They can't stand each other, yet since babies they've been inseparable. It'd be heart-warming if it wasn't so damn annoying. The problem is they need guidance. Guidance I don't have time to give them.”

  “The mother and father?”

  He breathes out. “There was a time when we were one, big group looking for a place to live. One day we came across some people on the highway, a nice-looking couple pushing this little, blue car down the road. We thought it was a little odd, so we approached carefully. As we got close it became obvious the two of them were badly infected. They were so far along they could barely put two words together, but they kept pointing into the car like there was something they wanted us to see. There was- two babies. One boy, one girl.”

  There are pictures on the wall, happy People with smiles and clean faces. Drawings of trees and sun.

  “They were staying away from the kids, making sure they didn't pass the infection to them. They'd locked them inside so that we had to break the door open. There was a note on the dashboard asking whoever found it to take care of their children. The couple couldn't even talk as we scooped up their babies, just kept crying and holding each other. I think to this day that's the hardest thing I've ever had to look at.”

  We turn left.

  “We got two blocks away before they caught up to us. We thought they'd changed their minds. Well, their minds were changed alright. It was either uncanny timing or the stress of giving their children away that pushed those two over the edge. They killed three of us before we were able to put them down.”

  Turning right through the big, clean house, we come to stairs which take us up, then to a room.

  “Tommy and Vanessa don't know the entire story, so don't go telling it. I don't want them to feel guilty about why they're here.”

  The room has a small bed on one side, a Vision Screen on the other, and a window, which he locks. “For security,” he apologizes. He shows us the bathroom and the shower. He tells us they use Water from the lake, even though he knows we won't use it. Then he leaves, saying he needs to ask around for some clothes.

  “These are good people,” I tell Child, “try not to get too close.” By the time Terence comes back, Child and I have pushed the bed against the wall and taken all the sheets from it to make a nest on the floor.

  “I just wanted to tell you the clothes will have to wait until morning, when some of the women are awake. I did manage to get this.” He throws something plastic to Child. From the strong smell of meat I know it's full of Supplies. “We dry meat to help us through the winter. I may not eat it but that shouldn't stop you.”

  I stop Child from ripping it open. “What do we say?”

  Terence thinks I'm talking to Child until he realizes I'm looking at him. “Oh. You say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” I say. Terence smiles a little and leaves. Then, when the door is closed and the foot sounds are gone, we tear the plastic open and rip into the meat.

  With our bellies full of Supplies we lay down in our nest, Child's small body curled against mine. My body wants Night sleep now, like the People in this house do. Like Munies do.

  It takes only seconds for the sleep to take me down its dark throat.

  **

  My eyes open.

  There's a scent in the air- familiar, old, coming from somewhere in the house. I haven't smelled it in many days, yet it never leaves the mind, the Fear of it so deep it can never be shaken, never be stopped, not by time and not by the Change.

  Smoke.

  Child takes only a touch to wake, her eyes wide and her nose going. When I tell her we have to leave she's already jumping up and following me to the door, listening at my side to the angry sound of it in the walls.

  “Light,” she says. “Hot light.”

  “Its name is Fire.” As we put on the masks I can hear it spreading through the house. That's what it does, it makes Supplies of everything it finds until there's nothing left. Of all the Beasts in the world, Fire is the hungriest of all, making Supplies until it kills even itself.

  The door doesn't open. Terence locked it behind him when he left. The window is locked, too, and the lock won't break. As I pull at it, screams come from inside the house, the panic in their voices. I pull harder but the lock won't move.

  I'm learning something- the things Real People do for safety always want to give me the Death.

  The Fire is growling. Back at the door I press my ear to it and find it hot against my cheek, which means the Fire is closer and our chance of escaping it smaller.

  Take the sheets into the shower. Soak them with Water and wrap the sheets around you.

  It's been a while since I've heard my mother's voice, but I can't think about that no
w, I have to do what she says. So I do. I take the nest apart and bring the sheets into the bathroom, throw them in the shower and turn the controls, and when the sheets feel heavy with Bastard Water I pull them out and put one around Child, then the other around me. The feeling is terrible, like being wrapped in the Fear, but I understand that Fire doesn't like Water, so it may be the only way to avoid the Death.

  Now break the door down.

  Smoke sneaks into the room, turning the air black. I step back to the bed and run at the door, impacting with my shoulder and feeling it through my body. I do it again, then again, then again but the door doesn't move. Child looks up at me like a frightened Beast wrapped in dripping sheets. It hurts me to see this, hurts me to know she's in danger again and I can't do anything to stop it.

  This makes me angry. Angrier than the Fire.

  With a scream in my teeth I run at the door again, expecting it to stop me, but this time I hear it snap and feel it move, and I follow it into the hallway where the shouting Fire is all around me, bright and making Supplies of the walls. The wet sheets on my back help, but still I feel the heat on my face.

  I grab Child by the arm and run.

  There might be a quicker way out but I don't know it, so we have to follow the path back the way we came, through the house and out, but first we have to find the stairs that go down. As we run we pass Real People running the same way, a man and a woman who look at us strangely. It makes me thankful for the masks we wear. If they knew what we were, without Terence to explain it, they might push us into the Fire.

  I can see the stairs but the way is blocked by Fire, and it's so strong not even the wet covers will get us through. Behind us the Real People catch up to us. Behind them the Fire is catching up to them.

  “We're trapped,” the women cries.

  “There has to be a way.” The man looks around at the doors, then at me, wanting to ask who I am but having no time.

  Child pulls on my arm and points to her nose. I close my eyes and smell the air to see what she means- the voice of the lake, whispering over grass. But it brings with it other scents, mixing somewhere, and I understand that we have to find that somewhere for us to escape.

  The woman screams for help as the man tries the doors. I ignore them both. “What are the other scents,” I ask Child.

  “Beasts with Death.”

  I turn to the man shouting at the Fire. “Where are your dead Beasts?”

  “Are you insane? What are you talking about?”

  “A way out.”

  He looks in my eyes and I see he understands. “You're changed,” he says. “How did you get in here? Did you do this?”

  The woman shakes him, her face wet. “Who cares, they're trying to find the way out!”

  He nods, thinking. “The library. It's right under us, with a door that goes outside. One of these rooms overlooks- this one!” He runs toward the Fire to one of the doors and kicks it in, the wall on the other side of it covered in books, and at the end of it a railing stopping the fall down to a big room filled with more books. Between them hang the heads of dead Beasts with frozen faces, the way hunters like them.

  We run in.

  “It's too far down,” the woman coughs.

  The man looks at Child, then at me. “Give me that blanket,” he shouts. He takes it from me and twists it, then he takes Child's and does the same, joining them together and making rope. Behind us the Fire is almost into the room so I close the doors. The man ties the rope to the railing and throws it over the side.

  We climb down the rope, first Child, then the woman, then me, then the man. We cross the room and burst through the door, into the beautiful air, coughing and falling onto the sweet-smelling grass as the sound of the house collapsing and burning comes from all sides.

  **

  Real People spill to the grass, their clothes burnt, their faces black as the house that crackles and roars in front of their wet eyes. Others shout and try to bring Bastard Water from the lake to throw onto it, trying to stop the Fire, but its flames are too bright and its hunger too strong for them to fight. It's like they're doing nothing at all, like Winged Beasts buzzing in the face of a great Beast.

  The Fire turns night into day all around us. Something I wish I could do.

  “Hey!” Someone shouts at me. It's Tommy, the boy twin, with his sister right behind him spitting black into the grass. “Have you seen Terence?”

  I shake my head.

  “Shit. Can you track him?”

  There's too much smoke in the air, too much fear and screaming. But then I hear something- foot sounds, very fast, not going back and forth between the lake and the house to get Water for the Fire, these foot sounds are running away from the house and toward the wood lines.

  If I say the truth, if I say the things I sense now without being embarrassed, I know exactly who it is. But I don't want to say it.

  “No go,” Child says, her face lit by Fire.

  “Stay here.” She shakes her head. “You're not following me. If you follow me we won't speak to each other ever again, understand?” She doesn't answer, so I shake her by her arm and shout, “Do you?”

  She nods.

  I run away from her, away from the house and away from the Fire, toward the lake where I know I'll find him. My feet are strong, thumping the ground and gripping the grass. Behind me I hear the woman from the Fire asking Child for her name, telling her to stay put. I'm happy Child is safe with them, but I don't like this woman talking to her, taking care of her the way I should be.

  Close to the lake it gets hard to see. I didn't realize until now that the Night Eyes are back in the room. After we went through so much for them, they're already gone. Strange how I had one pair of eyes for years but these I only had for hours. The difference between life inside and life outside.

  I squint at the wood lines as I come near. The man who ran here stands on them, and by his scent I know it isn't the one with the white hair and the crushed ear from when we came, though his scent is still here, but faded, and covered by the scent of blood.

  The man here- it's Graham.

  “Look how you've changed,” he says, smiling by the sound of him. “It's amazing how fast it's happening now, isn't it?”

  “Why did you come here?” I watch his shadow against the lake, follow the sound of the wood shifting under his feet.

  “And you're still talking in full sentences. You really are something special. But I bet that's nothing my brother hasn't been telling you.” He stops smiling. “You and I had a deal.”

  The lines sway beneath me. “You will never get her,” I growl. “I would get the Death before I let that happen.”

  “Ahh, you see that? That's why I like you. You have passion, and passion is something that can't be taught. That's why I decided I'd rather take you than that dirty, little shit.”

  A croak starts in my stomach.

  “This is my new offer,” he says. “If you come with me, right now, I'll tell everyone at the base that the younger one is dead. They'll believe me, because they always do. Then you can stay on as our new tracker and it...she gets to live. Everyone wins.”

  The croak grows.

  “What are you mad at me for? This is your fault. If you really wanted to protect her you would have taken me out by now. Killed me where I stood.”

  As I move slowly forward I feel the croak push up through my chest and into my throat.

  “You should be honored. I burned that place to the ground just to get you out of it. All those deaths are on your head, and anyone left alive has you to thank for ruining the only home on Earth they had left.”

  Something floats on the Bastard Water. Something with hands. It's the man with the crushed ear, his mouth open and his eyes watching the moon. The smell of blood is strong now, and in the dim light I see it covers my hands.

  “He was too trusting. His name was Ernie, Ernie Sanders. He'd be alive now if you'd listened to me in the first place.”

  “You ga
ve him the Death. You put Fire to the house. You did these things.”

  “When those people back there are standing over the bodies of their loved ones, who do you think they'll blame in their hearts? Me, a human being? Or the dirty, rag-wearing monster with the bad temper?”

  He starts to laugh behind his mask. It puts a feeling in my skull I can't explain and can't stop. All I can do about it is scream and run at him, run the lines and jump at him with my nails aimed at his eyes, wanting so badly to pull them from his head, but when my feet leave the wood he pulls something out and fires it at me. It hits me in the shoulder and my body explodes as I fall to the wood like lightning has struck me, my arms and legs frozen and my teeth grinding.

  I can't move. A spike is buried in my shoulder.

  “You see? Bad temper.” He puts away the strange gun and drags me off the lines into a small Water-car. I can't do anything to stop him, can't move a single part of me as he puts his sticks with flat ends into the Water and moves us away. Foot sounds and shouts come from land. People looking for me, Real People, and above them the sky burning.

  The Water-car moves into the Bastard Water like a voice. My mouth won't work. My body won't work. But I feel something in my fingers and toes, like Winged Beasts running over and inside them.

  “Picturing you trying to explain to those idiots how you didn't set the Fire is amusing, but you're my ticket home.”

  As he talks I feel my arms and legs being born back to me. I let him push us through the Bastard Water until my body is alive enough.

  “Let's see them put me on trial now,” he says.

  I wiggle my toes.

  Fast as I can I scramble to the side of the Water-car and pull myself over the side. I feel his fingers grab at my feet as I splash down.

  I slip into the cold black.

  **

  Someone down here is screaming.

  Slippery Beasts- fish- dart and push out of my way. They choke the lake. There aren't hunters of fish anymore, not like when I was a child. Their poles sit behind the windows of stores back on shore. I swim against the fish, their sharp bodies slicing at my skin where the suit doesn't cover it.